Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Typically, when you start using ITAM software, one of the first things to do (besides creating the IT inventory) is upload your assets’ users and locations. Since that information is often located in an on-premise directory (such as Active Directory), IT asset managers use a VPN to synchronize it with the tool. However, this extra step makes the process a bit more complex. But what would you say if there were another way to connect on-premise services to ITAM software apart from the VPN?

This past October, we had the pleasure of meeting with 11 IT leaders from diverse industries—including healthcare, financial services, education, telecom, logistics, and technology— as part of our inaugural SolarWinds Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting. The CAB is an exciting initiative for both myself, and our GVP of Customer Success, Anselm Peng.

Effective IT Asset Management is an absolute must to ensure high-quality IT services without huge expenses. Implementing an ITAM strategy has many perks in diverse areas such as Knowledge Management, IT security, finances, and employee experience. However, the only way to truly benefit from all of these is to do proactive IT Asset Management.

The service request management process is critical to maintaining efficient operations for any organization. By managing and tracking service requests, businesses can ensure that customer issues are resolved promptly and effectively. No matter in what domain or industry you are operating your business, requests are a standard process from employees, suppliers, or customers.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes a framework for delivering IT services according to best practices, including best practices for what’s known as knowledge management. Knowledge management, which includes being able to gather, store, and share IT knowledge, is critical for IT service management (ITSM).

ITIL 4 value streams have become a hot new topic for ITSM teams all over the world. The latest version of ITIL may have caused a learning curve for IT professionals and left a lot of room for discussion and elaboration. Value streams are not new; in fact, the concept has been around since as early as the beginning of the 20th century in Ford’s factories. Now, ITIL 4 has leveraged value streams as a core concept in an attempt to deliver value to all stakeholders.

Incident Commanders play a crucial role in the successful operation of IT service management (ITSM) teams. By applying best practices, they can ensure that incidents are handled quickly and efficiently, so that downtime for end users is kept to a minimum. ‍ This article provides an overview of the requirements for an effective Incident Commander in ITSM. It discusses the skills and competencies needed for effective incident management, and highlights some best practices for this role.

Highly successful companies and individuals share one similarity: They have an extremely clear vision of what they want to achieve and why. They know that although all work delivers outcomes, not all outcomes yield the same value. That’s why goals and a goal framework are important. Goal setting has always been essential to business success. Businesses today face different conditions and need systems to support their unique challenges in managing goals.